What versions of Karl Malone are better than 16 Draymond?

[Quotatious]

Wow, Green better than any version of Malone? I respect therealbig3, great poster usually, but it's kinda ridiculous to me. Ask Green to carry any team as #1 option, and he'll fail miserably, compared to Malone. Green being close to Duncan or Garnett defensively? Not at all. He's a great defender, but I'm not sure if he would make my top 20 all-time defenders in terms of peak, and Duncan/Garnett are both easily top 10.

I think the '92 Horace Grant vs '16 Green thread is a much better comparison than this one right here...Unless we assume that Grant was equal to Malone...Which I am not willing to do, to put it nicely.

Insane +/- not being accompanied by superstar caliber boxscore production, just doesn't mean all that much to me. You gotta have both. Malone was a heavy usage player who also looked pretty well based on +/-. That's a lot more impressive compared to what Green is doing, to me.

[Dr Spaceman]

Insane +/- not being accompanied by superstar caliber boxscore production, just doesn't mean all that much to me. You gotta have both. Malone was a heavy usage player who also looked pretty well based on +/-. That's a lot more impressive compared to what Green is doing, to me.

Are you seriously suggesting that statistical production is more important than helping your team win? That is so foreign I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Like is defense not a thing? Did Bill Russell not win 11 titles? I don't even know what to say to this.

[SlowPaced]

While the outside world underrates elite defensive impact, Realgm underrates elite offensive impact. This thread is no exception.

Rookie Malone and Lakers Malone are the only versions of Malone Draymond Green is better than. It's mind-boggling to me just how much Draymond has been overrated on these boards lately. You're doomed for lottery with him as your #1 option. And this isn't something you can just brush aside when you're comparing him to a Top 20 player of all time.

[Jory04]

Insane +/- not being accompanied by superstar caliber boxscore production, just doesn't mean all that much to me. You gotta have both. Malone was a heavy usage player who also looked pretty well based on +/-. That's a lot more impressive compared to what Green is doing, to me.

Are you seriously suggesting that statistical production is more important than helping your team win? That is so foreign I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Like is defense not a thing? Did Bill Russell not win 11 titles? I don't even know what to say to this.

Karl Malone was the number one option on every team his first fifteen years in the league, all those teams had one thing in common, they went to the playoffs. Karl Malone was a fierce competitor and a winner, Draymond is a very nice third piece on a championship caliber team. He is Toni Kukoc or Lamar Odom, not Karl Malone.

[tsherkin]

Okay I'll bite.

There's no way any post-lockout version of Malone is better than Draymond currently. Prime Malone was better than current Green, but to act like it's not even worth discussion is pretty crazy. He's two time runner-up DPOY for a reason.

Post-lockout Malone was better in 2000 and 2001. Thereafter, his scoring efficiency dropped off in a volume scoring role, and that hurt him by point of comparison, but I mean circa 2000 and 2001, he was a remarkable passer, still finishing with authority around the basket, still murdering it as far as drawing fouls, the whole nine yards. He was a better overall player than Draymond. It'll be interesting to see how Dray handles the rest of the time without Steph, because he's a fairly specific player in terms of his utility and skill set.

[AceofSpades69]

Draymond has become the most overrated player I've seen in a long while.

[Quotatious]

Insane +/- not being accompanied by superstar caliber boxscore production, just doesn't mean all that much to me. You gotta have both. Malone was a heavy usage player who also looked pretty well based on +/-. That's a lot more impressive compared to what Green is doing, to me.

Are you seriously suggesting that statistical production is more important than helping your team win? That is so foreign I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Like is defense not a thing? Did Bill Russell not win 11 titles? I don't even know what to say to this.

Let me explain.

First of all, Green is nowhere near Russell as a defender. Russell was most likely the most impactful defender who ever played this game, and by quite a sizeable margin (in my opinion, that wouldn't be the case if he played post-1980, because of rule changes, superior coaching, scouting, not being as much of a standout athlete anymore, but in terms of era-relative impact, Russell is pretty easily ahead of any other defender). Plus, the Celtics were built around Russell's greatest strengths - insane defense, rebounding and great ability to initiate the fast-break with outlet passes. Jazz were built around Malone's scoring and ability to finish in pick & roll. Warriors are certainly NOT built around Green's defense OR his offense. They are built around Curry's offense, his scoring and playmaking, the gravity that he has on offense, which opens up his teammates. That's the difference.

Second, I can't fathom using +/- numbers not in conjunction with boxscore production. Just taking a quick glance at RAPM numbers - you have guys like Shawn Bradley, Ryan Bowen, Eduardo Najera, Jason Collins, Doug Christie (just a few examples) ranked in the top 10 in the league. It really doesn't mean all that much if you have huge impact in limited minutes or when you are 5th, 6th, 7th or even lower, in team hierarchy as far as offensive responsibilities.

Being able to have success as #1 offensive option on a team is almost always the most important thing for basketball players, when I evaluate them (there are a few exceptions, like truly transcendent, outlier defensive players, who weren't anything special offensively, such as Bill Russell, Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace - Green is CLEARLY not on that level as a defender, or even particularly close to them - in spite of being one of the very best teams of all-time, and #1 all-time leader in wins, Golden State was only tied for the 5th best defense in the league, pretty far below the league-leader Spurs, and even -2.4 DRtg below #2 Hawks, despite the fact that Green played with two other elite defenders, Bogut and Iguodala).

Color me unimpressed about Green's performance in the playoffs with Curry being hurt. His points per game average is down, despite playing more minutes, his efficiency is down from 58.7% TS in the regular season to just 48.6% against Houston in the playoffs, against a team that had a bottom 10 defense in the league in RS, his assists are also down, AST/TOV ratio is also a bit worse.

I know that Malone wasn't exactly a stellar postseason performer, but even the fact that he was asked to carry his team, was expected by his coach and teammates to score 25-30 points every game, has to count for something. You think that with the level of scouting and coaching that we have today, GSW wouldn't know that Green has the ability to take 20 shots per game and carry them? They sure would, but the truth is that he simply doesn't have that ability. Hell, even in the playoffs, Karl had at least one postseason run when his offense was on another level from Green's - 1992.

Green is definitely a better defender than Malone, but it's not like Karl wasn't a good defender. He was very good. At any rate, individual offense beats individual defense, and Draymond isn't really an anchor of team defense, he's more like a jack-of-all-trades, super versatile defender, but not somebody you can surround with four average defenders and still have a top team defense, something that for instance Dwight Howard in Orlando was capable of doing.

Quite honestly, Malone vs Curry is a more apt comparison, because of their role. Curry is certainly better, but Malone, like Curry, was the guy who carried his team. +/- numbers should only be looked upon as a good argument if guys have a similar role on their team. So, just because Green has superior numbers in a much smaller role, doesn't make him a superior player. If it did, then why wouldn't you stretch that logic even further, and argue that, for example, Bryon Russell was better than Malone in 2000, just because he had better plus/minus in about the same minutes played? That's the fallacy of using +/- as "be all, end all". Similar thing can be said about this year's Warriors - Green is pretty much equal to Curry in terms of +/- numbers, but when you look at boxscore production, there's a CHASM in favor of Curry.

[MaliBrah]

This Draymond **** is getting ridiculous

It's laughable at this point. The man has gotten so overrated. He's still incredible nonetheless

[juice4080]

While the outside world underrates elite defensive impact, Realgm underrates elite offensive impact. This thread is no exception.

Rookie Malone and Lakers Malone are the only versions of Malone Draymond Green is better than. It's mind-boggling to me just how much Draymond has been overrated on these boards lately. You're doomed for lottery with him as your #1 option. And this isn't something you can just brush aside when you're comparing him to a Top 20 player of all time.

if draymond green is overrated then a guy like kawhi leonard is overrated to an bigger extent than green his....his game isn't anymore suited to be a 1st option than green is when almost all of his points are of the wide open variety coming off catch and shoot while having inferior handles and almost no passing abilities.........why is kawhi being pumped as a top 3 player and a superstar but green is seen as role player????

[Dr Spaceman]

While the outside world underrates elite defensive impact, Realgm underrates elite offensive impact. This thread is no exception.

Rookie Malone and Lakers Malone are the only versions of Malone Draymond Green is better than. It's mind-boggling to me just how much Draymond has been overrated on these boards lately. You're doomed for lottery with him as your #1 option. And this isn't something you can just brush aside when you're comparing him to a Top 20 player of all time.

The #3 seed in the east has Paul Millsap as its #1 option. The #6 seed (who by the way could realistically beat Miami) has Nic Batum as its best player (#1 option you could argue is Kemba Walker, either way he's much worse than Draymond). The #6 seed out West has 38 year old Nowitzki as its best player, who by the way isn't even a better offensive player than Draymond.

Meanwhile Davis is sitting at home and James Harden's team is getting embarrassed by Draymond's.

High IQ players, good coaching and a commitment to defense can get you extremely far in the NBA. Traditional "stars" are not the magic bullet they're made out to be.

[Dr Spaceman]

Spoiler:

Insane +/- not being accompanied by superstar caliber boxscore production, just doesn't mean all that much to me. You gotta have both. Malone was a heavy usage player who also looked pretty well based on +/-. That's a lot more impressive compared to what Green is doing, to me.

Are you seriously suggesting that statistical production is more important than helping your team win? That is so foreign I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Like is defense not a thing? Did Bill Russell not win 11 titles? I don't even know what to say to this.

Let me explain.

First of all, Green is nowhere near Russell as a defender. Russell was most likely the most impactful defender who ever played this game, and by quite a sizeable margin (in my opinion, that wouldn't be the case if he played post-1980, because of rule changes, superior coaching, scouting, not being as much of a standout athlete anymore, but in terms of era-relative impact, Russell is pretty easily ahead of any other defender). Plus, the Celtics were built around Russell's greatest strengths - insane defense, rebounding and great ability to initiate the fast-break with outlet passes. Jazz were built around Malone's scoring and ability to finish in pick & roll. Warriors are certainly NOT built around Green's defense OR his offense. They are built around Curry's offense, his scoring and playmaking, the gravity that he has on offense, which opens up his teammates. That's the difference.

Second, I can't fathom using +/- numbers not in conjunction with boxscore production. Just taking a quick glance at RAPM numbers - you have guys like Shawn Bradley, Ryan Bowen, Eduardo Najera, Jason Collins, Doug Christie (just a few examples) ranked in the top 10 in the league. It really doesn't mean all that much if you have huge impact in limited minutes or when you are 5th, 6th, 7th or even lower, in team hierarchy as far as offensive responsibilities.

Being able to have success as #1 offensive option on a team is almost always the most important thing for basketball players, when I evaluate them (there are a few exceptions, like truly transcendent, outlier defensive players, who weren't anything special offensively, such as Bill Russell, Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace - Green is CLEARLY not on that level as a defender, or even particularly close to them - in spite of being one of the very best teams of all-time, and #1 all-time leader in wins, Golden State was only tied for the 5th best defense in the league, pretty far below the league-leader Spurs, and even -2.4 DRtg below #2 Hawks, despite the fact that Green played with two other elite defenders, Bogut and Iguodala).

Color me unimpressed about Green's performance in the playoffs with Curry being hurt. His points per game average is down, despite playing more minutes, his efficiency is down from 58.7% TS in the regular season to just 48.6% against Houston in the playoffs, against a team that had a bottom 10 defense in the league in RS, his assists are also down, AST/TOV ratio is also a bit worse.

I know that Malone wasn't exactly a stellar postseason performer, but even the fact that he was asked to carry his team, was expected by his coach and teammates to score 25-30 points every game, has to count for something. You think that with the level of scouting and coaching that we have today, GSW wouldn't know that Green has the ability to take 20 shots per game and carry them? They sure would, but the truth is that he simply doesn't have that ability. Hell, even in the playoffs, Karl had at least one postseason run when his offense was on another level from Green's - 1992.

Green is definitely a better defender than Malone, but it's not like Karl wasn't a good defender. He was very good. At any rate, individual offense beats individual defense, and Draymond isn't really an anchor of team defense, he's more like a jack-of-all-trades, super versatile defender, but not somebody you can surround with four average defenders and still have a top team defense, something that for instance Dwight Howard in Orlando was capable of doing.

Quite honestly, Malone vs Curry is a more apt comparison, because of their role. Curry is certainly better, but Malone, like Curry, was the guy who carried his team. +/- numbers should only be looked upon as a good argument if guys have a similar role on their team. So, just because Green has superior numbers in a much smaller role, doesn't make him a superior player. If it did, then why wouldn't you stretch that logic even further, and argue that, for example, Bryon Russell was better than Malone in 2000, just because he had better plus/minus in about the same minutes played? That's the fallacy of using +/- as "be all, end all". Similar thing can be said about this year's Warriors - Green is pretty much to equal to Curry in terms of +/- numbers, but when you look at boxscore production, there's a CHASM in favor of Curry.

So if you replaced Draymond Green with Karl Malone on the Warriors, how many games would they win? 75? 80? 82?

If his role is so tiny surely a superstar like Malone could do a much better job.

[Quotatious]

So if you replaced Draymond Green with Karl Malone on the Warriors, how many games would they win? 75? 80? 82?

If his role is so tiny surely a superstar like Malone could do a much better job.

I'm not sure if they would win any more than 73, they might even win less, because that team is built to maximize Green's abilities more than Malone's, but I am pretty sure that Utah would decline dramatically with Green replacing Malone, much more so than Golden State would decline with Malone (and GSW declining isn't even a sure thing, by any means). Jazz would sorely miss Malone's scoring, Stockton/Hornacek/Green is a pretty underwhelming trio in terms of scoring, if your goal is to win a title, certainly not enough to make the finals, maybe not even conference finals.

[bballexpert]

Spoiler:

Are you seriously suggesting that statistical production is more important than helping your team win? That is so foreign I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Like is defense not a thing? Did Bill Russell not win 11 titles? I don't even know what to say to this.

Let me explain.

First of all, Green is nowhere near Russell as a defender. Russell was most likely the most impactful defender who ever played this game, and by quite a sizeable margin (in my opinion, that wouldn't be the case if he played post-1980, because of rule changes, superior coaching, scouting, not being as much of a standout athlete anymore, but in terms of era-relative impact, Russell is pretty easily ahead of any other defender). Plus, the Celtics were built around Russell's greatest strengths - insane defense, rebounding and great ability to initiate the fast-break with outlet passes. Jazz were built around Malone's scoring and ability to finish in pick & roll. Warriors are certainly NOT built around Green's defense OR his offense. They are built around Curry's offense, his scoring and playmaking, the gravity that he has on offense, which opens up his teammates. That's the difference.

Second, I can't fathom using +/- numbers not in conjunction with boxscore production. Just taking a quick glance at RAPM numbers - you have guys like Shawn Bradley, Ryan Bowen, Eduardo Najera, Jason Collins, Doug Christie (just a few examples) ranked in the top 10 in the league. It really doesn't mean all that much if you have huge impact in limited minutes or when you are 5th, 6th, 7th or even lower, in team hierarchy as far as offensive responsibilities.

Being able to have success as #1 offensive option on a team is almost always the most important thing for basketball players, when I evaluate them (there are a few exceptions, like truly transcendent, outlier defensive players, who weren't anything special offensively, such as Bill Russell, Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace - Green is CLEARLY not on that level as a defender, or even particularly close to them - in spite of being one of the very best teams of all-time, and #1 all-time leader in wins, Golden State was only tied for the 5th best defense in the league, pretty far below the league-leader Spurs, and even -2.4 DRtg below #2 Hawks, despite the fact that Green played with two other elite defenders, Bogut and Iguodala).

Color me unimpressed about Green's performance in the playoffs with Curry being hurt. His points per game average is down, despite playing more minutes, his efficiency is down from 58.7% TS in the regular season to just 48.6% against Houston in the playoffs, against a team that had a bottom 10 defense in the league in RS, his assists are also down, AST/TOV ratio is also a bit worse.

I know that Malone wasn't exactly a stellar postseason performer, but even the fact that he was asked to carry his team, was expected by his coach and teammates to score 25-30 points every game, has to count for something. You think that with the level of scouting and coaching that we have today, GSW wouldn't know that Green has the ability to take 20 shots per game and carry them? They sure would, but the truth is that he simply doesn't have that ability. Hell, even in the playoffs, Karl had at least one postseason run when his offense was on another level from Green's - 1992.

Green is definitely a better defender than Malone, but it's not like Karl wasn't a good defender. He was very good. At any rate, individual offense beats individual defense, and Draymond isn't really an anchor of team defense, he's more like a jack-of-all-trades, super versatile defender, but not somebody you can surround with four average defenders and still have a top team defense, something that for instance Dwight Howard in Orlando was capable of doing.

Quite honestly, Malone vs Curry is a more apt comparison, because of their role. Curry is certainly better, but Malone, like Curry, was the guy who carried his team. +/- numbers should only be looked upon as a good argument if guys have a similar role on their team. So, just because Green has superior numbers in a much smaller role, doesn't make him a superior player. If it did, then why wouldn't you stretch that logic even further, and argue that, for example, Bryon Russell was better than Malone in 2000, just because he had better plus/minus in about the same minutes played? That's the fallacy of using +/- as "be all, end all". Similar thing can be said about this year's Warriors - Green is pretty much to equal to Curry in terms of +/- numbers, but when you look at boxscore production, there's a CHASM in favor of Curry.

So if you replaced Draymond Green with Karl Malone on the Warriors, how many games would they win? 75? 80? 82?

If his role is so tiny surely a superstar like Malone could do a much better job.

Yea but throw green on utah and they a lottery team he woudl fall off a cliff because at best he is a third option. **** he putting up 12.7 on 487 ts in this playoffs with out curry the **** lost to worst team in the playoffs. Green is good but to have Thompson and Curry on his team is a luxury Malone never had in his prime Curry is better then Malone him self.

[tsherkin]

The #3 seed in the east has Paul Millsap as its #1 option.

This is an empty statement. You can build a team which can have regular season success in a variety of different ways, and the #3 seed team was also the 22nd offense in the league with Millsap as the #1 option, so I don't know why you thought that was a salient comment in the context of what Q was saying. Millsap is doing a poor job of driving their offense, and Atlanta made its bones as a defensive team, not on offense. They were a 48-win team, 9 games back of the 1st seed and a tie-breaker away from the 3rd seed, but they were also the 2nd-best defense in the league, which doesn't really address the whole concept of #1 option.

The rest of your commentary about the East could be summed up as "is the weaker conference, which we've known for years," to be honest. Salient in the context of top-end individual team success within conference, but not really an effective way to treat the idea of what Draymond is or is not.

High IQ players, good coaching and a commitment to defense can get you extremely far in the NBA. Traditional "stars" are not the magic bullet they're made out to be.

To a point, yes, but there's a reason the Hawks haven't made any real noise in the JJ or post-JJ era, and why star-driven teams are still winning titles. Depth and breadth of talent is good. Team concepts are good. Not having one guy who isn't a transcendental player gunning for 30 ppg? Wise. But star talent still irrefutably drives the top teams of the league, as far as the playoffs go.

[Dr Spaceman]

The #3 seed in the east has Paul Millsap as its #1 option.

This is an empty statement. You can build a team which can have regular season success in a variety of different ways, and the #3 seed team was also the 22nd offense in the league with Millsap as the #1 option, so I don't know why you thought that was a salient comment in the context of what Q was saying. Millsap is doing a poor job of driving their offense, and Atlanta made its bones as a defensive team, not on offense.

That wasn't a response to Q. That was a response to the comment "you're doomed to the lottery with Draymond as your #1 option". He didn't say "you'd struggle to build a top flight offense around Draymond", he said the team would suck, and there are a fair amount of examp-les in the current league refuting that.

Millsap is doing a poor job of driving their offense, and Atlanta made its bones as a defensive team, not on offense. They were a 48-win team, 9 games back of the 1st seed and a tie-breaker away from the 3rd seed, but they were also the 2nd-best defense in the league, which doesn't really address the whole concept of #1 option.

And last year they were a 60 win team that had the 6th best offense in the league. They've changed a lot this year, but they'd still probably be around league average if they weren't the worst offensive rebounding team in the history of the league (which, given their personnel is basically a 100% strategic choice).

High IQ players, good coaching and a commitment to defense can get you extremely far in the NBA. Traditional "stars" are not the magic bullet they're made out to be.

To a point, yes, but there's a reason the Hawks haven't made any real noise in the JJ or post-JJ era, and why star-driven teams are still winning titles. Depth and breadth of talent is good. Team concepts are good. Not having one guy who isn't a transcendental player gunning for 30 ppg? Wise. But star talent still irrefutably drives the top teams of the league, as far as the playoffs go.[/quote][/quote]

Right, I'm not refuting that, but if star talent drives the top teams and Draymond based on everything we've seen seems to drive star talent, then where does that leave us? Why would you prefer a guy who in a down year could still drag you to 50 years when you could have a guy who in a good year blows the ceiling off to the point you win 73?

[tsherkin]

That wasn't a response to Q. That was a response to the comment "you're doomed to the lottery with Draymond as your #1 option". He didn't say "you'd struggle to build a top flight offense around Draymond", he said the team would suck, and there are a fair amount of examp-les in the current league refuting that.

Well, half of that is contestable, and the first half, less so. It would be difficult to build an offense around a guy who can't score. Premier playmakers who blow at scoring haven't traditionally run high-end offenses. We're talking about Kidd, Rondo, we're talking about Wall. Even a guy like Marbury wasn't brilliant because he wasn't a hot scorer, right? So that part isn't problematic to handle. Can you build a good RS team that isn't hot on offense? Absolutely, we see that all the time: elite ability at either end will build a very strong RS team, but that will get exposed in then playoffs at some stage, earlier than the Finals. That's also been commonly demonstrated.

And last year they were a 60 win team that had the 6th best offense in the league.

Last year, Millsap wasn't the first option

Right, I'm not refuting that, but if star talent drives the top teams and Draymond based on everything we've seen seems to drive star talent, then where does that leave us? Why would you prefer a guy who in a down year could still drag you to 50 years when you could have a guy who in a good year blows the ceiling off to the point you win 73?

It depends on what position he's filling on your team, obviously. There are more roles than "star" or "scrub," pretty clearly. Most teams don't benefit from an ATG talent, so the assembly of the remainder becomes that much more important... and obviously even ATG talents require assistance of one sort of another. Scottie, Draymond, etc, etc. You can find All-Star level talents who aren't superstars and would be challenging to use as the focal point for a title team on all kinds of actual title teams, right? In the end, though, you need the real superstar talent, not just the complementary star. Day-Day has more Shawn Marion in him than Steph, you know what I'm saying? He's a laudable player, an All_Star-caliber talent, but he's not the guy you want as your primary star. That's a little different than Malone, who missed out on titles because he ran into the GOAT and because the Jazz never really put a sufficiently good scoring talent alongside him.

[PCProductions]

I'm kind of disappointed in the sweeping dissension by a lot of posters in this thread. The whole purpose of this board is to have challenging discussion that buck conventional wisdom, otherwise we may as well be going to our local barbershop for our NBA digest.

Anyway, this is a particularly interesting question to me that I think is being underrated because of how much it offends some by the way it implies that one has to analytically select years from an all timer like Malone to rank above Draymond's current year, and he has been a hot point of contention around here in the last year and half or so to say the least.

The reason why I like this question a lot is that we are really at philosophical crossroads with a guy like Draymond right now. How much do we believe that a transcendent impact can be made outside of volume box score stats? Because that's whats really being asked here as far as I'm concerned. The thing about Garnett--who is a +/- darling as well--is that he was not one whose contributions escaped the likes of the box score keepers, but Draymond to a larger degree than most is.

My thought experiment is here: what if I asked you to what degree can you affect the game without netting a single statistic? No points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks. What is there that one can do in a game without netting one of any of those? I mean, for starters, you can box out, you can set screens, you can have a "hockey assist", you can space the floor. Those are some of the offensive things. Defensively, we all know well that most of that is untracked in those stats. In fact, I would argue that the defensive box score is less meaningful than the other things you can do--that is, steals and blocks amount to less than half of the impact that a great defender has when he plays.

People who clamor about how watching a game is important must agree with the answer being that there are as many ways to affect the game without netting a statistic for it than there are ways that are marked in the box score. Otherwise, I could easily judge how good a game someone had without watching the game at all, right?

Anyway, what gets even more interesting with Draymond is just how this season and his impact compute. I mean, if we're on the side of people who agree that the game can be impacted in a way without necessarily being represented in the box score, then all that really matters is winning and a player's ability to help that happen. The Warriors just cracked the all time record for wins and netted the 6th best SRS of all time. That objectively states that this is one of the NBA's historically great teams. Furthermore, Draymond has had more than enough evidence to state that he is largely to be credited for that dominance, with some even arguing that his impact edges Curry's. And yet, because he doesn't have the PER of Malone's prime, most of that "impact" must really be the product of the system he's in. Malone is independently great because of his ability to stuff the traditional stat sheet, and Draymond does things that are simply enabled by the program he's in, and that cannot be the other way around because... why?

It's a good question.

[magicmerl]

On offense, there's no comparison between the two and I'm not su sure that Draymond has him beat by that much on defense.

Draymond is handily the better defender, but you're right that offensively Malone is flat out better.

My thought experiment is here: what if I asked you to what degree can you affect the game without netting a single statistic? No points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks. What is there that one can do in a game without netting one of any of those? I mean, for starters, you can box out, you can set screens, you can have a "hockey assist", you can space the floor. Those are some of the offensive things. Defensively, we all know well that most of that is untracked in those stats. In fact, I would argue that the defensive box score is less meaningful than the other things you can do--that is, steals and blocks amount to less than half of the impact that a great defender has when he plays.

Great post, but ultimately isn't this +/- you're talking about here?

Anyway, what gets even more interesting with Draymond is just how this season and his impact compute. I mean, if we're on the side of people who agree that the game can be impacted in a way without necessarily being represented in the box score, then all that really matters is winning and a player's ability to help that happen. The Warriors just cracked the all time record for wins and netted the 6th best SRS of all time. That objectively states that this is one of the NBA's historically great teams. Furthermore, Draymond has had more than enough evidence to state that he is largely to be credited for that dominance, with some even arguing that his impact edges Curry's. And yet, because he doesn't have the PER of Malone's prime, most of that "impact" must really be the product of the system he's in. Malone is independently great because of his ability to stuff the traditional stat sheet, and Draymond does things that are simply enabled by the program he's in, and that cannot be the other way around because... why?

I think PER is a rubbish stat that overrates players who take all the shots. That said, there are statistical box score values that matter, and show Draymond as being good too.

The thing about Karl Malone was that he was never the most talented player in the league, or even in the top 5. But he was often the hardest worker in the league. That's why his regular seasons look so much better than the post season: he brought his A game vs the bottom feeders of the league as well as the best teams, with the obvious result being that he didn't have a 'next level' come playoff time. And he did it for SO LONG. His longevity can't really be a part of any single season evaluation between Draymond and Malone, since Draymond's career is so short by comparison.

I think a better intangibles comparison for Draymond would be Rodman, since he was such an intangibles guy too. It's hard to compare elite passing (for a big) with elite rebounding though.

That said, here's some numbers to compare Draymond with Malone's prime from 89 to 01:

Dramond '16 .190WS/48 5.9BPM 5.6VORP
Malone '89 0.233WS/48 6.1BPM 6.5VORP
Malone '90 0.245WS/48 6.6BPM 6.7VORP
Malone '91 0.225WS/48 5.8BPM 6.5VORP
Malone '92 0.237WS/48 5.3BPM 5.6VORP
Malone '93 0.238WS/48 7.6BPM 7.6VORP
Malone '94 0.193WS/48 6.3BPM 6.9VORP
Malone '95 0.212WS/48 5.8BPM 6.1VORP
Malone '96 0.233WS/48 7.3BPM 7.4VORP
Malone '97 0.268WS/48 8.5BPM 7.9VORP
Malone '98 0.259WS/48 7BPM 6.9VORP
Malone '99 0.252WS/48 6.8BPM 4.1VORP (lockout shortened, prorates as 6.1VORP over 82 game season)
Malone '00 0.249WS/48 6.9BPM 6.6VORP
Malone '01 0.217WS/48 5.9BPM 5.8VORP

So the years Draymond has a case over Malone in '92 (if BPM is your metric of choice). I personally don't think that current Draymond is better than any of the versions of Malone listed in a vacuum,

[tsherkin]

The Warriors just cracked the all time record for wins and netted the 6th best SRS of all time. That objectively states that this is one of the NBA's historically great teams. Furthermore, Draymond has had more than enough evidence to state that he is largely to be credited for that dominance, with some even arguing that his impact edges Curry's. And yet, because he doesn't have the PER of Malone's prime, most of that "impact" must really be the product of the system he's in. Malone is independently great because of his ability to stuff the traditional stat sheet, and Draymond does things that are simply enabled by the program he's in, and that cannot be the other way around because... why?

It's a good question.

This doesn't feel quite right. What if Draymond is what he is because of the specific role he plays and that is specifically reliant on the type of player you can't guarantee finding, and you can't lean on him to anchor your whole team to years of success (even if not a title)?

This is really a more abstract question than Malone vs Draymond: it's high-end complement vs. focal offensive star in terms of value.

[therealbig3]

Why is it so important that Draymond Green wouldn't be able to carry a bad team like Malone? Isn't it more important that he can elevate a better team to higher levels than Malone?

And you can say that Draymond Green isn't close to KG or Duncan defensively, but +/- is really the best way to objectively measure defense imo, and Green isn't too far behind either.

Defensive RAPM (using 02-08 Garnett/Duncan):

08 Garnett: +5.2
04 Duncan: +4.3
07 Garnett: +4.3
04 Garnett: +4.2
05 Duncan: +3.8
06 Duncan: +3.6
16 Green: +3.4
03 Duncan: +3.4
08 Duncan: +3.1
07 Duncan: +2.5
02 Duncan: +2.3
03 Garnett: +2.3
06 Garnett: +1.9
05 Garnett: +1.3
02 Garnett: +1.2

Looks like Green fits in just fine with Duncan and Garnett's prime, defensively. Not quite the best, not quite the worst. But the description of "close enough" certainly applies (outside of 08 Garnett, Green is within 1 point of the best that we saw out of Duncan and Garnett).